Posts Tagged ‘TSA’

If you (significantly) don’t look like your passport picture anymore, your passport may no longer be valid. With the development of facial recognition technology, it’s important that you can be identified by your passport or ID photo. Don’t freak out if you’ve colored your hair or grown facial hair — the Department of State only requires a new photo if you’ve undergone “significant change” like facial surgery, a gender transition, significant weight loss/gain, or adding/removing facial tattoos and piercings.

Signs are sprouting up at many airports to alert travelers that beginning Jan. 22, 2018, the Transportation Security Administration will begin strict enforcement of the REAL ID requirements at airport security checkpoints.

That means that, a year from now, passengers presenting a driver’s license or identification card from a state where those documents don’t meet the REAL ID Act’s minimum security standards — and where extensions to meet those requirements have not been granted — may be turned away.

The Transportation Security Administration on Wednesday urged foreign security agencies to ramp up security after receiving intelligence reports that terrorists might try to surgically implant explosives in the bodies of suicide bombers.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the intelligence that led to the warning “does not relate to an imminent or specific threat,” but the TSA issued a statement saying that travelers heading to the U.S. from foreign nations may notice screeners taking additional protections.

“Measures may include interaction with passengers, in addition to the use of other screening methods such as pat-downs and the use of enhanced tools and technologies,” TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball said.